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Rafaele regards me with a pensive expression. This might be the first hurdle he did not anticipate or plan for. “I shall give you a credit card and send you a list of stores to visit tomorrow. My people will look after you.”
I have to respect the ease with which he removed this unexpected factor. My father and I have dealt with similar situations when something unexpected happens on stage. We go with the flow and make the audience think that it was all part of the performance. I smile inwardly. Signor Bressan, we might yet discover more similarities between us.
I thanked him, and we turned to face my father. My lightheartedness disappears. I can tell Papà is nervous. I wonder why. What did I miss? Is he sicker than he is letting on?
We make our way out of the secure room, and Rafaele walks us out the same way we came in. At the grand entry hall, the guards accompany us down the stairs and to the waiting taxi.
"Let's go, Romola," my father calls urgently from inside the idling car, pulling me from my thoughts. I glance back at Rafaele, standing with his hands in his pockets, his stoic expression masking any trace of emotion.
As we drive away, I stare out the window, watching the opulent estate fade into the distance. Tomorrow night's masquerade party looms on the horizon, hope and uncertainty all wrapped in one – a dance that we must face head-on, masks and all.
Chapter 11
Romola
The taxi moves through the cobblestone streets as I glance sideways at Papà, whose eyes are fixed on the road ahead. The weight of silence between us is suffocating, and I can't help but notice his tense posture, a stark contrast to his usual confident and easygoing demeanor.
"Is everything okay, Papà?" I whisper cautiously, not wanting to exacerbate whatever troubles him. He offers me a reassuring smile, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Of course, Romola. Everything is fine," he replies, still not meeting my gaze. But I know better; I saw the way his hands trembled back in the vault, betraying the anxiety that he now tries so hard to conceal.
"Back there, in the vault...” I begin, but he quickly grabs my arm and looks at the driver. He leans closer and whispers in my ear, “That man, Rafaele, he could have eyes everywhere.”
I give the gentlest nod and shift my gaze to the rearview mirror in the middle of the seats up front to make sure the taxi driver isn’t focusing on us. “Back there, in the vault, you looked nervous," I say softly, still studying the driver’s face. So far, he seems engrossed in the road ahead.
Papà sighed, finally turning to face me, and I turned to look at him. His eyes, usually so warm and full of life, seem clouded with concern.
"There's something I need to show you," pulling out his phone. As he swipes through his gallery, my heart races in anticipation, wondering what could possibly have rattled him like this. When he finds the photo he's looking for, he turns the screen towards me.
My breath catches in my throat as I look down at the image displayed on the screen – the Heart of Italy. The diamond gleams with an almost otherworldly brilliance in the photos on his phone, its mesmerizing facets reflecting the light in a kaleidoscope of colors. It shouldn't be possible, and yet here it is, right in front of me.
"Wha— how?" I stammer, unable to tear my eyes away from the impossible sight. My mind races, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing and what it could mean for us.
"Romola, we have stumbled upon something much more dangerous than we ever imagined," Papà says gravely, his voice barely audible above the hum of the car's engine. "We need to be careful, and I took this photo just in case we need it sometime."
The fear that has been lurking in the shadows of my thoughts, whispering its sinister warnings, now takes center stage, demanding my attention.
"Father, how did you even manage to take this photo?" I ask, trying to process the enormity of what I'm seeing.
Papà hesitates for a moment, his eyes flickering around the car as if searching for eavesdroppers. "I took it when no one was looking when Rafaele was giving you instructions," he murmurs.
“There were cameras out there, Papà,” I exclaim, a little too loud. Papà grips my fingers, and I quieten down. “You don’t even know what kind of trouble you might have gotten us into!”
“I know,” he mutters. “But I needed to take the photo.”
“I needed to take it for what?” I inquire so slowly that I worry he won’t be able to hear me.
“For backup.”
“To know the value? Aren’t you afraid of getting caught? Of Rafaele finding out?”
“There’s a man I know,” he whispers back. “A man I trust. He could look at it and give us a number. Until we don’t understand the numbers we’re talking of, we could be taken for a ride.”
"Isn't that risky?" I’m deeply worried about the potential consequences of involving more people in our already precarious situation. "What if they betray us or try to steal the diamond?"
"Romola, we have no choice," he insists, his tone gentle yet firm. "We need to do our own research on this to know what we're really dealing with. The stakes are too high not to."
My father’s argument makes sense. It is one thing to trust our usual go-to guy for selling the pocket watches and locket chains we have dealt with so far; it is an entirely different thing to trust a stranger—a criminal in the mafia, nonetheless!
